Alexander is by spring 324 BCE back in Susa, capital of Elam and administrative center of the Persian Empire (the story of his journey through Carmania in a week-long drunken revel, dressed as Dionysus, is embroidered, if not wholly apocryphal.)
He finds that his treasurer, Harpalus, evidently fearing punishment for peculation, has absconded with six thousand mercenaries and five thousand talents to Greece.
Alexander holds a feast to celebrate the seizure of the Persian Empire, at which, in furtherance of his policy of fusing Macedonians and Persians into one master race, he and eighty of his officers take Persian wives; he and Hephaestion marry Darius' daughters Barsine (also called Stateira) and Drypetis, respectively, and ten thousand of his soldiers with native wives are given generous dowries.
Alexander also marries Parysatis, the daughter of Artaxerxes III.
Ptolemy, whom Alexander has decorated several times for his deeds, is in the ceremony married to the Persian Artacama.
Seleucus marries Apama, the daughter of Spitamenes, the ruler of Bactria.
This policy of racial fusion brings increasing friction to Alexander's relations with his Macedonians, who have no sympathy for his changed concept of the empire.
His determination to incorporate Persians on equal terms in the army and the administration of the provinces is bitterly resented.
This discontent is now fanned by the arrival of thirty thousand native youths who have received a Macedonian military training and by the introduction of Orientals from Bactria, Sogdiana, Arachosia, and other parts of the empire into the Companion cavalry; whether Orientals had previously served with the Companions is uncertain, but if so they must have formed separate squadrons.
In addition, Persian nobles have been accepted into the royal cavalry bodyguard.
Peucestas, the new governor of Persis, gives this policy full support to flatter Alexander; but most Macedonians see it as a threat to their own privileged position.
